Stop Me if You've Heard This One
by ThereisnoSyntaxhere
Summary: So a Dragonlord moves nextdoor to a Dragonslayer. When the Dragonlord decides they should be friends, it gets harder for the Dragonslayer to believe this isn't all a joke.
1. Chapter 1

Honestly, Galanoth didn't believe it. A Dragonlord was coming to Dragesvard. Not just to stop by, they were moving here. Not just in a general area in the town, but quite literally next door to Galanoth's own home. This Dragonlord was going to be_ his neighbor_. _Their dragon_ was going to be _his neighbor_. And there was _nothing_ he could do about it. The property was paid for. The simple cottage that stood next to his own simple cottage was torn down and replaced with a damn _castle_, moat and all.

"And it just looks tacky." He said. The famed Dragonslayer was looking out a second-story window in a rare moment of armorless-ness. It was currently the early morning twilight, the time when morning had started but the sun hadn't risen yet, leaving the sky in a faded blend of midnight and sky blue. Even in such poor lighting he could see the new castle standing erect next door. The building stuck out like a sore thumb, looking greatly misplaced amongst the cottages of Dragesvard. "Whoever made this thing obviously didn't know not to make their walls bright, shiny silver."

He sighed and ran some fingers through his hair, then looked around his study. On his desk were several maps with the locations of several villages having dragon problems circled in red. There were books written about the demons, their weaknesses, where they're found, what works best as bait. There were his own notes as well, written in the event that he ever took up an apprentice. Galanoth chuckled at that thought. "Like that will ever happen." He mumbled.

On the wall, the enormous head of a red dragon rested atop a dying fireplace. Dragesvard being built on a glacier, it got very cold most days, so when Galanoth had moved in he requested there be multiple fireplaces installed. They were all enchanted to burn throughout the night and keep the house warm, but he still had to replace the logs each morning. And yet, even if all of the fireplaces in his house were lit and (ironically) roaring, more often than not he would still be cold.

On another wall was another dragon's head, this time that of a plasma dragon. Plasma dragons were a rare breed, apparently said to live near the center of the planet, but he'd found this one near a trading town called Ioba, obviously quite a ways away from the center of the planet. A short while before he had the creature's head mounted, he noticed notches carved into its top left horn. In all the years since he'd never been able to figure out what those notches were from. It could have been possible that they were put there by his own spear when he killed it, but his blade had went nowhere near its head. Mysterious carving or not, he still considered it to be a great trophy and a good find.

Another wall was barren, holding only the window he had been gazing from. The final wall, the one with the door on it, bore a vast collection of dragonsbane-coated knives on it as well as the regular wooden door. Every single one of those knives had been used to either kill a dragon, cook a dragon, skin a dragon, or some combination of the three.

And this room wasn't his standard trophy room. All of the rooms in his house, with the exception of the bathroom, had at least one head mounted on a wall. All of the rooms, including the bathroom, had weapons in them covered in dragonsbane in case something crazy happened. There was a large carpet in the living room downstairs made out of a rather large green dragon's hide. The severed wing of a dragon hung on a wall in his bedroom.

He was a dragonslayer. He was_ the _Dragonslayer. If he found a dragon, he would kill it. No exceptions. Ever.

And yet...A Dragonlord had apparently decided to move in next door. He honestly did not—could not—even begin to fathom why such a thing would take place. "It's almost like this is the pilot to some bad comedy show. Or a buddy-cop series."

Again, he chuckled at his own sleep-deprived thoughts. He always seemed his funniest when tired. Or maybe he was just so out of it at the moment that anything was funny. "Dragonlord and Dragonslayer: they fight crime."

Before he could contemplate what sort of crime that team-up would be fighting, he noticed his back was getting a bit warmer. There were a few rays of sunshine leaking through the window, signalling the end of the morning twilight. People would be up and about soon, and with the recent increase in attacks from the local frost dragons, they would need his help. Galanoth forgot his musing for a moment to look himself over. A thick (_very_ thick) robe, some slippers, a night cap, all lined with rhoddu fur and stitched with love so as to be as warm as possible. All well and good for sleeping, but he was a defender in this city. He needed his armor.

With a final glance at the soon-to-be-occupied castle, some more hair rustling and another sigh, Galanoth left the room to fetch his armor and begin his day.

"Hard to believe they'll be here by the end of the week."

* * *

The next few days flew by as quick as a dravir fleeing in terror from the famous Dragonslayer. The frost dragons' attacks on the neighboring villages had increased ten-fold, so Galanoth was kept rather busy. The villagers had been told that his home was always open if something horrible happened and he would always be willing to help them. And come they did, in droves even. He barely had any time to himself at all.

Which is why he was savoring the time he had now up in his study. For the past few minutes he had been watching a team of workers hauling furniture into the castle. Most of it was still in boxes, but every so often he would see a bedframe or some couches, as well as a desk and several bookshelves. He wasn't exactly hiding, so when one of the workers noticed him and waved, he waved back.

He'd heard a lot from the locals about this new addition to the town. Apparently the Dragonlord's name was Price, a well known do-gooder in the region. Price had been travelling to different towns over the past several months solving the villager's problems. Bandit attacks, werewolves, even the odd trobble infestation were quickly dealt with. Unfortunately, that was the only concrete information Galanoth had about the apparently elusive Dragonlord. Most of the villagers' information was simply rumors. None of them knew what this 'Price' character looked like, how old they were, what sort of class or skillset they had, or even what their first name was.

Needless to say, he was very curious about his new neighbor.

He had decided in the intervening days that it'd be best to meet this Dragonlord when they arrived. Size them up. "Maybe I'll even send a basket of muffins as a welcome to the neighborhood." He mumbled. He'd probably have time to make said muffins, too: it was only a little after lunchtime and this 'Price' wouldn't arrive until shortly before the sun went down.

He was brought out of his daydreaming by the faint sound of flapping. The sunlight streaming throught the window lessened as the flapping grew louder. He knew what was causing that sound all too well. Wings. _Dragon wings_. They were being attacked! Instinctively, he reached for his spear, and rushed to the stairs. He was about halfway down when he noticed that he couldn't hear any screaming and his house had yet to be barged into. Unfortunately he was mid-step when he noticed this, and ended up tripping down the stairs. Ouch.

Thankfully nothing was broken. He checked to see if anything was sprained as well. Nope. At worst he would end up with some bruises, but nothing serious. Oh well, at least no one saw that.

Still...If there was a dragon in the town and no one was screaming, it probably meant that Dragonlord was here. That was odd, why were they here so early? He suppoesed it didn't matter. What did matter is that they were here _period_ and he needed to find out more about this Dragonlord. So, feeling a bit clumsy and more than a bit stupid for jumping the bolt and rushing to fend off their 'attackers", Galanoth picked himself up from the floor and made his way to the door. It was time to meet this new neighbor of his.

* * *

**NOTE: This came to me while I was sleeping. Or rather, when I was tossing and turning in bed and trying to sleep. Though the original draft was a Frostval story; we may get to that later. I kinda like this though.**

**'Jumping the bolt' refers to a crossbow bolt since I don't think guns are prevalent enough in this world to create an idiom like that.**

**Does anyone remember Zero Hex? Has he done anything lately?**


	2. Chapter 2

Galanoth wasn't even halfway through the door before he was bombarded with people.

"Sir Dragonslayer! What do you make of this monster?"

"Sir Dragonslayer! How will we be able to support ourselves if that creature eats all our fish? Surely something that large needs large amounts of food!"

"Sir Dragonslayer! How will we breathe with that thing belching fire over our town?"

"Sir Dragonslayer!"

"Sir Dragonslayer!"

Every single voice was yelling at the same time, resulting in a cacaphony of noise that he just couldn't stand.

_"Enough!"_ He yelled.

The villagers jumped back almost in unison. He glanced around at the few yards of frost covered grass he'd taken to calling his front lawn. Every inch of grass was covered up by people. There were so many concerned citizens in front of his house that they were spilling into the street and onto other people's yards.

_'Okay, calm down man. Count down from ten for a bit, breathe deeply.'_

He started again: "Okay, now whatever you were trying to say, say it one at a time."

A frazzled woman holding a child stepped forward. "Sir Dragonslayer, while the mayor of our town has assured us that this—Dragonlord has their dragon under control, we've found most of us would be able to sleep better at night if we recieved such words from you as well." Many of the other villagers nodded in agreement.

Galanoth had to surpress the urge to groan. He brought his hands to his temples and sighed instead. "And you waited until _now_ to do this, why?"

"With everything else you've done to protect our town over the past few weeks, we didn't want to disturb you." Explained a man wearing ram horns on his head.

Right, because that makes perfect sense. He was glad his helmet obscured his face; the villagers probably wouldn't have liked it if they saw him rolling his eyes at their attempts of kindness. Still, they respected him, so he did his best not to sound as annoyed as he was.

"Look, I'll keep an eye on them alright? If something doesn't seem right, you'll be the first to know. Now if you'll excuse me," he said, "I believe the dragon is landing."

Galanoth made his way through the crowd of people onto the street, where sure enough the dragon was indeed landing. He regarded the creature with interest; in all of his travels he'd never seen anything like it. The body was a dark grey, while the wing membrane was a light teal. A mane of hair the same verdant color was on its head and neck, as well as smaller tufts on its leg joints and at the tip of its tail. A single pair of black horns with a large kink in them and a snout more befitting a horse only served to make the creature even stranger looking.

It didn't look like any dragon he had ever come across, or even heard of. It looked more like someone's interpretation of what a dragon looks like than anything else.

Its rider slid off of its back and affectionately patted the dragon's shoulder. He noticed that this Dragonlord had chosen to wear a cloak with the standard armor instead of the normal horned helmet. So they were both faceless. At least for now. A bit before the distance between the two had been closed, the Dragonlord turned and smiled at him.

Galanoth ignored the smile and looked the Dragonlord over. Judging by the lack of sculpted breasts on the chest plate, the person before him was most likely a man. A very short man, probably only five and a half feet tall as opposed to the average six feet tall most people were. Stocky, too. Possibly dwarvish in bloodline?

What he found interesting _really_ though, was that the man had blue skin. Either he had a bad run-in with some potions, or he wasn't human.

"I take it your name is Price?" he asked.

"Ha! I see my reputation precedes me. Yeah, that's my name, don't wear it out." Yep, most likely a man. Women's voices weren't usually that deep.

Price continued: "And you sir?"

Galanoth balked at that. He wasn't one to toot his own horn, but was this guy serious? He could faintly hear some of the people in his yard chatting about their new resident's supposed ignorance. "You really don't know who I am?"

"No I do, it's just that normally when you introduce yourself to someone, they tend to tell you who they are as well. Ya'know, common courtesy."

Well that made sense, in a way. Before he could reply, Price had already started talking again.

"Oh! I almost forgot Sugar!"

"...What?"

He patted the dragon's shoulder again. The large creature turned and lowered its head to about eye-level with the famed Dragonslayer. It snorted at him in a bored manner.

"My dragon. Her name is Sugar. I forgot to introduce her." Price clarified.

...

"Umm, you can talk now. I'm done."

...

"..Mister dragonslayer? Hello?"

"Yeeeeeeah, I think we're done here." Galanoth said. He turned and left, ignoring the ever louder cries of indignance from the upset Dragonlord.

* * *

**NOTE: I honestly had no idea how to end this. It just wanted to keep going, but it got more and more awkward, so I just threw up my arms and did this. Though really, most of the problems I had with this was _starting_ it, every time I tried beginning the chapter it turned into crap.**

**Anyway, you ever notice how, if someone describes their character, they're alwys tall, beautiful, flawless, with an amazing voice? Yeah. That's not happening here. And I'm not kidding with the 'Yep, most likely a man' thing, I honestly do sound like a guy sometimes.**


	3. Chapter 3

His bedroom didn't have any windows, but Galanoth didn't need to see the sun shining to know it was morning. He just knew. One might say that since his profession practically required him to get up early, what with getting his armor on, sharpening and cleaning his weapons, and maybe eating breakfast before some villager came pounding on his door because their villager got destroyed and they need help, eventually he'd start getting up early purely out of habit. _He_ would say that he was always an early riser and _one_ should mind their own damn business. Though that did kinda sum up his morning routine.

Not that he cared. Every day was different, so why should it matter if they started out roughly the same? The familiarity made whatever novel thing that happened even more unusual and memorable. That in mind, he got out of bed and brought out his mental checklist. The nature of his work being what it was, certain things had to be done everyday, or else he would most likely die in a firey and painful manner. It was a waste of time, and also downright stupid, to do things in a haphazard fashion and then wonder about them later. He'd fought with many an adventurer, and more than one of them died because they forgot to sharpen their weapon that morning.

Hence, the mental checklist.

First things first, head to the mirror to check if he still had a reflection. Though fairly new on the checklist, Galanoth had felt the need to add it after he'd apparently been vampirised in his sleep that one time. Needless to say, he'd found the idiot that did it and _persuaded_ him to undo that little mistake, but there was always the chance it would happen again. He could still see his own face though, so there was one less thing he needed to kill today.

Second, did he need a bath? Idly, he lifted his arm and sniffed. Nope. Not today at least, maybe tomorrow. His eye caught the mirror again, and he frowned.

"Hmmm. I _do_ need to shave though." He said, rubbing the offending bristles. "Great. Now I get to sift through the knives for an hour to find one thin enough to work."

That was the downside to adventuring. No matter what your gender, if you go into a store and the owners can tell you're an adventurer, they'll try to sell you daggers instead of razors. Unfortunately, daggers and razors are not interchangable; he had the scars to prove it.

Galanoth let out a sigh of irritation and headed to the study to find a good enough knife.

* * *

After spending roughly fourty-five minutes looking through the vast amount of blades in his home, Galanoth eventually settled on one of the paring knives he had in the kitchen. It actually worked pretty well considering the ratios of hair loss to skin loss to blood loss. He did end up having to dunk his head in the wash basin a few times to get all the blood off, though, which eventually turned into a proper bath after cleaning his new gashes.

"Let's see, clothes—" On. "Hair—" Still dripping a bit, but he still had time before he needed to leave. "Face—" Dyeing his towel reddish-brown. Great.

"Note to self: buy red towels from now on." He sighed.

Okay, next on the mental checklist, inspect armor for anything that might get him killed.

* * *

His armor was fine, his weapons were fine (inspecting them was pretty easy considering he'd already gone through half of them in his quest to find a suitable razor) and the fireplaces were lit. The last item on his mental checklist was breakfast. Galanoth smiled as he headed up the stairs to the kitchen. His house was three stories tall, and the kitchen was at the top floor. With all the running around he did in the morning, he could always get a work out done before breakfast.

When he reached the kitchen entrance he went straight for the perishable rack by the wall. Today felt like a good day for an omelette. He skimmed the rack before grabbing some peppers, tomatoes, onions, and a few jalapeno peppers, then headed for the spice rack to pull out roughly a third of the containers it held: White pepper, garlic, cayenne, chili powder, salt, cumin, other various spices. Galanoth was sure that at some point he started whistling. This was going to be good.

He set the ingredients on the countertop, retrieved a good-sized pan from underneath the oven and set about smothering it in butter. All that was left were the eggs and the meat. Normally he used dragon eggs in his cooking, but he hadn't found any lately, so he was left with the regular chicken kind at the moment. Some quick item-grabbing in the refridgerator (whoever invented this was a genius) got him sausage, ham, bacon, and three different kinds of cheese for his breakfast. He looked in the refridgerator for eggs—and there wasn't any.

"You've got to be kidding me."

He looked again. And again. After scouring the inside of the refridgerator for the fourth time Galanoth had to concede that he was not getting an omelette today. Scratch that, after scouring the inside of the refridgerator four times and yelling angriliy for five minutes he conceded he wasn't getting an omelette.

* * *

Well, after an annoying morning he was finally ready to start the day. With an irritated frown on his face, Galanoth swung open his front door...To find a basket of muffins sitting on the doorstep.

"Hm? What's this?" Curiosity won over paranoia, so Galanoth bent down to retrieve the muffin basket. There was a note attatched to the handle.

"'_Sorry we got off on the wrong start like that. Would you care to let me try again? K. Price_'" He read. He flipped the note over. '_p.s. You can keep the basket if you'd like.'_

Despite himslef, Galanoth couldn't help but stare dumbly at the muffin filled basket.

"...I better not be dealing with a pyshic here."

* * *

**NOTE: The only reason there are two updates in one day is because school was out for reasons of hurricane winds and I had nothing better to do.**

**While I was typing this I got screenshots of the inside of Galanoth's house from the Ice Orb quest, and I realized that I royally screwed up his house. Apparently I put a window in a wall joining the study and the bedroom. In my defense, however, I will point out that his in-game house was built using a very strange geometry. And it has no bathroom. So for the sake of this story we're going to assume it's a normal house with normal geometries.**

**Galanoth cooking is also not something I pulled out of my art-hole, he wrote cooking recipes for The Zardian in the early issues and actually said that he cooks a lot.**


	4. Chapter 4

Honestly, it was almost as if the castle was mocking him. Galanoth had been pacing around its walls—well, _wall_ really, it was a circle after all—for roughly thirty minutes now, and he had still yet to figure out how to get inside of it. It shouldn't be this hard to get into someone's house.

Though the house in question wasn't really a house; it was a castle. A very small castle, but a castle nonetheless, complete with an outer wall, a drawbridge (which as far as he could tell had no means of opening from the outside) and a moat.

He stared at the moat in question with absolute hatred. The moat was the main reason he couldn't reach his destination; it and the drawbridge. Though, the castle's owner was also at fault here. There had been a perfectly acceptable house standing where this little castle and its **_moat_** now stood mere weeks ago. But, obviously the house wasn't good enough, as that Dragonlord that he _still_ couldn't believe was his neighbor tore it down and put this bright silver eyesore on the glacier in its place.

Galanoth willed his legs to take him around the castle one more time before he left. He'd wasted too much time here already: the neighboring villages were still being attacked and he needed to organize a search party to rescue anyone that had been left behind when the last village was evacuated. The indentation in the outer wall that housed the drawbridge quickly came into view—because again, it was a small castle—and as he followed the curve of the moat, the first of a pair of (what looked like) energy dragon sculptures adorning the sides opposite the bridge came into view as well. Simple things, really: the two sculptures held a combatant segreant posture, obviously poised to attack, yet each had a clear yellow orb stuffed in their mouths. Galanoth was sure that the statues had some sort of symbolic meaning, but as he walked past the sculptures and the drawbridge and started towards the business district to charter some griffons and get a search party underway, he really couldn't bring himself to care. He could wonder about the sculptures later when there wasn't anything better to do.

"Leaving so soon?"

Galanoth froze. There was no one on the street as far as he could see. Where the hell had that voice come from?

"Behind you."

He turned back to face the castle. Almost immediately his eyes were drawn to the pair of dragons on the wall: the orbs they carried were glowing a bright yellow now, as were the single pair of eyes that he could see. What?

"Who are you?" He shouted. What the hell was going on? Obviously it was magic, but what the hell?

"I am the Gatekeeper. My master had me installed in the outer wall so that visitors could come and go as they please, without the need for such clumsy means as a pulley or a lever. You just need to say the word Mister, and I will lower the bridge for you." The voice chimed. He noticed that the light the orbs were emitting fluctuated at the voice's every syllable.

"The…Gatekeeper?" Galanoth echoed.

He felt like slapping himself now. Of course the gate was magic. Everything was magic nowadays, why had he assumed different. Great.

"That's right!" The entity in the wall chimed," My master had me installed in the outer wall so that visitors could come and go as they please, without the need for such—"

"Yeah, alright I get it, you already said that." He snapped.

The orbs dimmed in their glow. For a second, Galanoth was afraid that he'd broken the damn thing, but then the orbs lit up again and the Gatekeeper resumed its chattering.

"I'm sorry, I was programmed with a limited list of responses. Do you wish to enter the castle?"

Well, that was what he came here for.

"Yes."

"Very well then, I will lower the bridge for you, Mister! Please make yourself at home while I alert my master."

With that, the orbs ceased glowing almost instantaneously. Galanoth shifted his weight from foot to foot for a few moments before the bridge began to lower as well. After what seemed like an eternity, the drawbridge made contact with the stone streets of Dragesvard, and the legendary Dragonslayer cast a look of smug satisfaction at the now conquered moat before entering the castle before him.

* * *

Well, the interior of the castle certainly didn't look how he thought it would.

There was the standard stone floor and walls, as well as a great spiraling staircase that lead up to the second floor, but certain things seemed very out of place. For starters, he'd entered the castle into a large-ish hallway with the staircase at the end. Two archways built into the left wall opened up to a kitchen and a den, with a large window built into the wall between them. An actual door on the wall to his right led to something very large, if his estimate of the castle's circumference was accurate. He wasn't going to open the door and check, but something told him he'd find out what was in there eventually.

Some chairs and end tables lined the walls, as well as a few paintings and what looked like a dozen lamps. Everything was decorated in only four colors: red, orange, gold, and black. Obviously Price didn't much care for cool colors. As he inspected one of the paintings on the right wall—an oil painting of what looked like an old style rendition of a sandstorm—Galanoth had to admit that the Dragonlord had good taste in interior design, despite what the incredibly tacky exterior design of the castle had led him to believe.

The thumping sound of hurried footsteps began to trace its way across the ceiling and spiral down the staircase. Obviously, Galanoth thought, that was Price. If that note he'd left with the muffins was any indication, the dragonlord would probably be wanting to impress him. He turned to face the stairway and greet owner of the castle, already prepping himself for any possible dialogue, but to the Dragonslayer's surprise, all he saw coming down the stairway was a rather large pridelord, which ignored him and made its way into the den.

As Galanoth was staring at the archway the pridelord had dissappeared through, the door on the right wall clicked open behind him. Through the door walked Price with a rather large smile on his face.

"Oh hey!" The Dragonlord chirped, "I didn't expect you to stop by. Welcome to the castle, make yourself at home!"

* * *

**NOTE: I need to stop getting grounded. Seriously. So, after—what, four months now? We get chapter four. Galanoth has headed to Price's house to speak with his new neighbor and possibly say thanks for the muffins. Tune in next chapter, where we see dialouge between the two, hopefully get a plot started, and maybe find out just what the "K" stands for.**

**Years of playing The Sims has given me an eye for interior design. With the exception of the hallway, the dragon sculptures, and a few minor changes, Price's house is basically my in-game house. If you want to see it, my ID number is 11960405.**

**If your curious about what "combatant segreant" means, look up heraldric attitudes. Heraldry will pop up here every once in a while.**


	5. Chapter 5

Galanoth could only describe the next few moments as strange. Shortly after materializing from the room of mystery, Price had dragged Galanoth into the den, introduced him to the pridelord that was lounging on an orange-and-black metal armchair (its name was Johnson), set him down on the matching couch and practically skipped away into the kitchen to prepare some tea.

Not exactly how one would expect a meeting between a Dragonslayer and a Dragonlord to start. And did he _really_ look like the kind of guy that would drink tea? Seriously.

Oh well. With nothing in the room aside from the occasionally squirming pridelord and seeing Price skittering around the kitchen though the wall-window to keep him occupied, Galanoth let his eyes wander around the room. Demento had told him once when they were younger that he had a habit of analyzing everything that people had in their homes, noting everything he saw down to the tiniest detail. Now that Galanoth thought about it, that habit was probably one of the reasons he had survived many of his more dangerous hunts. Sometimes the difference between life and death is how well you know your surroundings.

Still. The color scheme from the hallway had continued to the den, with the orange-and-black chairs, a black metal coffee table, a few red throw pillows, and a large yellow-gold rug on the floor that looked like it'd been quilted together from various other rugs in the most eclectic manner possible. Some more end tables, a half dozen more lamps (how many lights does one person need in their house, really?), a medium-sized fireplace that was unlit for some reason, and a very large painting on the wall above him that was only a bit less wide than the couch he was sitting on.

"Alright-y then," said Price as he appeared from the kitchen with some glasses in one hand and a pitcher of brown—liquid in the other," So, mind telling me why you decided to stop by? I mean, I'd _assume_ that you got my note and you wanted to talk, but I don't wanna be rude and jump to conclusions, and…" He sort of squeaked a little, then set the pitcher and glasses on the coffee table and poured out some of the liquid.

"I'm sorry, I got sorta carried away there, I completely forgot about the tea. Now, um, do you drink unsweet or should I—Johnson, get out of the chair I need to use that!"

Galanoth regarded the Dragonlord with interest as he shooed away the large pridelord and reclaimed his chair. Price was acting very nervous and unsure of himself; a stark contrast to the confident air he'd displayed when they met on the street last week.

"You seem frazzled." He said.

The Dragonlord shrugged. A somewhat impressive feat when one is wearing armor.

"I guess I'm just not used to having company. The only time I've ever had guests was when my family came over, or when the officials were doing surprise inspections. I'd always fail those; apparently their idea of clean and my idea of clean are two completely different things. I mean it isn't that big a deal,_ I_ always knew where everything was and no one ever tripped over anything—well, except for that one time, but…" He trailed off.

Price shook his head and reached for some of the "tea". "Sorry," he said, "I have a bad habit of rambling. But, I guess you figured that out already."

"Yeah, kinda." Galanoth replied. He was eyeing the "tea" with suspicion. The thought of poison was far from his mind, since as far as he knew Price had nothing against him. He was concerned a bit more about taste: from what he knew of tea, it was even nastier than usual when cold, and the stuff in the pitcher had ice floating in it.

"It's not bad. I came from the West, and we like our tea iced over there. Usually with tons of sugar in it too, but I don't much care for "western sweet" as they call it. Try it. It's nothing at all like hot tea, I assure you."

Galanoth shook his head. This wasn't exactly a social visit, and he needed to get the formalities over with as soon as possible. The search party hadn't left his mind yet, and they were losing daylight. Price just shrugged again and drank some of his tea. "Suit yourself."

Looking back, it was probably around that moment that the pony came into the den.

Galanoth had been about to change the topic and start inquiring as to why exactly Price was in Dragesvard, since the Dragonlord Order tended to let him do his own thing when the dragons inevitably attacked, when he noticed the dog-sized pink horse trotting into the room. At that point, really all he could do was stare at the creature and try in vain to reclaim his train of thought.

"…What is that." He said. It was more of a statement than a question, really.

"That's a pwny. Spelled P-W-N-Y. They're like battle horses, only fun sized, so you can't ride them."

"…What is it doing?"

"Preening its wings." Price explained. "They don't have fingers, so they use their teeth, like birds do. _Isn't that right?"_

Galanoth winced. Price was crooning in an annoyingly high pitch that made it sound like he was about to start mashing his face into the pwny's while saying "boojie-boojie". Not a very masculine way to talk. Evidently though, the pwny loved it, since it jumped on Price's lap and curled itself up in a ball, something that Galanoth had previously thought to be outside the realm of horsely movement.

"So," Price said, happily scratching the pwny's ears," back to I was saying before, why _did_ you come here? I don't think we got to that part yet."

Oh right, that was what…There was the train of thought, there was his brain. Now then: "I was about to ask you the same question. Normally the Dragonlord Order doesn't meddle in the affairs of isolated towns and villages like this one. Which means either you came here of your own accord for reasons I know not, or you're here to deal with the dragon problem." The Dragonslayer said. He'd made a point of sounding more business-y than usual to make up for the earlier distraction. No need to let the Dragonlord think that he'd been caught off guard.

"Why I—? Oh." Price frowned. "Um, hold on a sec, _Sprinkles get down._" He nudged the pwny onto the floor and set his tea down on the coffee table before continuing. "Well, unfortunately, you're right on both fronts. I—The Order, well—something happened at Dragonsgrasp and we think that it might be related to the sudden increase in dragon attacks. Now, I, uh, don't really fit in much there and I kinda needed the field experience, so I volunteered to come here and investigate myself. That answer your question?"

Yes, and raised even more questions. Galanoth leaned forward on the couch. Now he was curious. The migrating city of Dragonsgrasp was something he didn't hear much of, so to hear that both something had happened and something _bad_ had happened in one sentence was very interesting.

"What exactly was it that happened?" He asked. Information on the happenings of the Order was always welcome, and now he actually had an excuse to ask for it. Every organization has loose-lipped rookies, so maybe Price was one of them. Unfortunately, Price was shaking his head in dismissal.

"I'm sorry," The Dragonlord said," but that's currently classified information. The higher-ups in the Order want everything under wraps, so I can't tell you. If things get way out of hand, I'm authorized to explain the full situation, but until then…Sorry."

"Well, it was worth a shot." You can't really blame a guy for trying. The two shrugged, almost in unison, before resuming their previous position. The Dragonslayer was slouching back in the chair, pondering the little information he had, while the Dragonlord resumed sipping his tea and awkwardly petting the pwny that had taken to snuggling against the orange-and-black armchair. They sat like that in silence for a short while.

* * *

**NOTE: I figured it'd be a good idea to get another chapter in before the apocalypse. Sorry ti took so long—this has actually been sitting in my computer for a while now since I couldn't figure out how to end it, so I just cut some stuff out.**

**Sorry we haven't gotten to what the "K" stands for. We'll get there soon. On the plus side though, we have the beginnings of a plot! Those of you who know about the Dragonsgrasp Saga will know immediately what the "incident" Price mentioned was, but for those of you who don't, where the hell have you been it was released like, two years ago.**

**Sprinkles in my in-game Derp Pwny. All of Price's pets are mine, though Johnson is technically a house item. **


End file.
